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I met the guy -- seems just like yesterday -- one day when I was home from the Lowcountry visiting the office. I think I had met him briefly when he was first interviewing here, but didn't remember much -- after all, I was leaving and pretty well distracted.

I was talking with Darlington (S.C.) County Treasurer Belinda Copeland last week and we were having a bit of fun over some of the topics I have recently addressed in this column, and how some of my comments may have come across as being a bit negative. The word "harsh" may have come up.

One week ago today, an email appeared in my inbox which completely blew me away. It was from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). I've been a member in the past and hope to be again (need to catch up on my dues, you know), and still receive emails from them occasionally about things going on in journalism across the country.

WASHINGTON -- Perusing the wires on a deadline morn, I was struck by a constellation of intellectuals struggling to translate the relative meanings of Brexit, Donald Trump and the West's populist surge against elites.

Merely my perspective, but with more than 300 hundred million people in our country, I am more than puzzled over our choices in presidential candidates. I mean seriously, is this the best we can do? I imagine many people have asked the same question. While I am not a huge fan of either of the picks, what I do know is not voting will not be an option for me.

As we hurtle toward intermission in this theater of the absurd we call the 2016 presidential election, I feel compelled once again to hearken back to the prescient words of the late, great George Carlin, who said the following nearly three decades ago:

Under the title of "The Iron Man", authors Kirkland and Kennedy in Chapter XIX of Historic Camden, Nineteenth Century chronicled the story of dueling in Kershaw District. They began with an 1804 grand jury presentment lamenting the prevalence of dueling at that time and concluded with the story of the last duel in S. C., that of Cash and Shannon in 1880.

July 05, 2016|
By Harvey S. Teal
Provided by the Kershaw County Historical Society
|Columns

During a recent phone conversation with my father, we talked about a lot of different things. He was actually driving (hands-free, don't worry) to my sister's house in Virginia and I think he kept me on the phone as long as he did so he could pass most of the nearly three-hour drive a little more pleasantly.